The Different Past to Present
by SunInHerSmile
Summary: When Temperance Brennan is abandoned by her parents and brother, a series of events brought her into the orbit of Seeley Booth much earlier, leading to the start of a different sort of partnership between the two much earlier than expected. How will life be different and how would it be the same for them if fate got to them before they were ready.
1. Chapter 1

**BONES isn't created, controlled, owned, or written by me. Hart Hanson and Fox get those honors.**

**A few things to note about this story's canon before we begin this fiction party:  
1) Brennan was born in May of 1974, making her two years older than she is in the show. Booth wasn't aged down so as not to interfere with his time in the Rangers.  
2) Brennan's parents left the Christmas of 1988, with Russ leaving in January of 1989.  
3) In June of 1989, Brennan was placed in a foster family that moved her to Philadelphia, where she would end up attending the same high school as Booth in August and begin tutoring him in September.**

**This is a repost of a story I started a while ago and never finished. I've recently been inspired again and I wanted to give this story a chance to shine.**

May 23, 1990

"It has to be wrong... the test has to be wrong, right Bones?" Seventeen year old Seeley Booth looked frantically over to the sullen figure of sixteen year old Temperance Brennan, sitting on the seat of the toilet in the small bathroom of Seeley's grandfather's home. The brunette teen hadn't made a move or said a word since she finished using the test stick over five minutes ago. She was well aware of what the pregnancy test was going to say. The positive result was the only logical one that it could have given, taking into account the symptoms of fatigue, nausea, tender breasts, headaches, and the missed menstruation she was experiencing. She had moved away from the stage of sheer panic and denial that Booth was now occupying hours ago, and was now simply angry that she'd let herself get into this mess.

She was the smartest girl in her high school, and probably any other high school out there, and yet she had managed to make one of the most irresponsible decisions a girl her age could make (several times in fact). It was all Booth's fault, she concluded, he was simply too charming, too caring, and too willing to provide her with the affection she had so missed since her parents and Russ had left over a year ago. But placing all the blame on him wasn't fair to Booth, and it certainly wasn't fair to her either. She had very actively agreed to everything, although there hasn't really been much to agree too, as it had just happen-

"BONES!" The panicked cry from Booth drew her attention back to him, and the very pale face he now had.

"Booth, I really think you need to sit down, you are becoming extremely pale and you aren't breathing very well." She stood up and moved away from the toilet, allowing for the soon-to-be hyperventilating Booth to sit down.

"Of course I'm not breathing well! You're _pregnant_! How the hell am I supposed to be breathing?! I'm freaking out!" He plopped down ungracefully onto the hard porcelain before dropping his head between his knees and taking deep breaths. "This just can't be happening, I mean, we used protection! What are we gonna tell Pops? This is what I get for having sex before marriage... this, right here, is divine punishment. I just don- "

"Please don't be mad at me" Brennan blurted out, surprising both herself and Booth , who was now looking up at her from his still downwards position, with the fear in her voice. _So much for having a check on my emotions._

"I'm not mad at you Bones... why would I be?"

"Because I'm the one that's pregnant and traditionally in situations of unwanted pregnancies, the male exhibits aggression towards th-"

"How many times do we have to go over the fact that you can't rely on books to tell you what your life is going to be like?" Temperance had always found Seeley Booth to be something of a contradiction. The seemingly perfect jock personified, Booth was considered an absolute catch by almost every girl in the school, save for seniors, and the ultimate prize for any cheerleader. Yet while he did exhibit the traditional alpha male tendencies one would expect him to have, he didn't seem to place that much stock in the social hierarchy of school, save for its convenient labeling system. He was always one to give a smile or helping hand to whomever he came across, and was notoriously against any type of bullying or hazing his teammates would do.

It was only after the time they'd spent together while she was tutoring him in Biology, which had morphed into time spent just hanging out and then grown into what had gotten them to where they were today, that Temperance had come to know that before Philadelphia, there had been Pittsburg for Booth. Pittsburg would forever be defined for Booth by the drunken beatings he'd received from his Father, an absent Mother, and the social isolation of an outcast. That was why he was so nice to everyone he met, why he had befriended the awkward foster kid that seemed too smart for her own good... he knew the pain of rejection, and refused to see it happen to others.

"You're right Booth, you have very frequently demonstrated how you are an exception to some traditional social norms and I should have by now come to expect different from you. I will make sure in the future not to hold you to those standards."

"No Bones, I didn't mean just me, you have consider that other people mig... wait a minute, what the hell am I doing giving you a social lesson right now? You're pregnant!"

"Yes Booth, we've established that."

"You're pregnant and I'm going to be a Dad." Brennan noticed the ever so slight smile that briefly graced Booth's lips. No matter how it happened, Seeley Booth was going to be a devoted father, his Catholic upbringing and basic personality would see to that.

Too bad she couldn't say the same about herself. She had never been the normal child who played with her dolls as if they were her own babies or played house with some random male her own age. She'd never babysat a neighbor or had the inclination to go up and coo over some other person's child. The fear that griped her wasn't necessarily about having a child, but if she would be able to love it and care for it or rather decide at some point to abandon it like her own parents had done to her.

What she didn't realize was that by simply worrying about that possibility, she was already well on her way to being a great mother.

_Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me.  
__**Carl Sandburg**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Once again, BONES isn't created, controlled, owned, or written by me. Hart Hanson and Fox get those honors.**

May 23rd, 2003

"Do you think she'll be happy to see me?" Brennan questioned Booth as she took a bite out of the salad she'd ordered at the diner they'd picked for lunch. It was her first official day of living in DC, after years of temporary stays in between different digs and travels around the globe. She had finally gotten to a point in her life where going and going and going just wasn't satisfying her as much. Her reputation was established, she had just signed a very lucrative development deal with a publisher, she was financially secure... but mostly it was getting too hard to be away from her daughter all the time. She had had plenty of job offers elsewhere, but this was her daughter's home, and she couldn't bring herself to do anymore selfish acts in regards to her. Taking up the position as the Jeffersonian and teaching at American University were simply the best option for everyone.

"Are you kidding me?" Booth looked as if Brennan had just asked him if bears crapped in the woods, and the hamburger he had been about to eat sort of went slack in his hand, dropping half its contents back on the plate. The idea that their daughter wouldn't be happy to see her mother, the mother she hadn't seen in 8 months, was probably the craziest one he'd heard in a while... and that was taking into account the guy who claimed his wife's boyfriend had tripped and fired a loaded gun into his head. "She's gonna flip out the moment she sees you!" A conspiratorial smile fell over Booth's face as he leaned closer to Brennan, "Especially considering she has no clue you were coming back or staying put."

"Booth!" No wonder she hadn't really been responding as enthusiastically as she normally did when Brennan had asked about what she'd like to do when she was back in town... she hadn't known it was a concrete event rather than fantasy talk. "I've been asking her for weeks about plans she'd like to make and couldn't understand why it just kept making her sadder and sadder! I thought she was upset with me!" The smile on Booth's face fell off as he realized the slight hiccup in his scheme. He could have sworn he'd mentioned to Brennan what he had planned, in fact, he was sure he did.

"Now wait a minute, I told you about all of this last month on the satellite call, remember?"

"No, you started to say something but the reception started to break up and the spaghetti you were making started to boil over... I thought you wanted to give her a prize for something." Booth started nodding his head as he remembered the conversation and recognition flashed over him.

"So THAT'S why you've been talking about prizes all this time!" Booth took a sip from his milkshake as he looked at Bones. "I thought you had been reading one of those crazy parenting books again."

"I don't read crazy parenting books, I read anthropologically sound research papers on different types of child-rearing... and I'm glad to know that we simply had a miscommunication, I thought you were showing signs of early-onset dementia."

"Good lord Bones, I'm only 30, stop trying to put me in the ground."

"Actually Booth, if anyone is trying to put you in the ground, it would be yourself. You choose professions that involve above average danger to oneself, your diet-"

"Can we just stop talking about me and get back to Sunshine?" Booth cut in, interrupting before Bones could get on another one of her healthy food lectures.

"I still find it interesting that you were the one so adamant about her name and yet never seem to use it."

"Well I've been calling her Sunshine for 12 years and I'm not stopping now." Booth took a firm bite out of his now put back together burger as if to emphasize the point.

"13 actually." Brennan commented off-handedly as she forked a ranch covered tomato on her plate.

"Huh?" He commented mid-chew, eliciting a look of disgust from Temperance.

"You've called her Sunshine since the day we found out I was pregnant, and that was exactly 13 years ago today."

"You're kidding!"

"No, May 23rd, 1990, the day I took the pregnancy test and the day you started humming 'You Are My Sunshine' whenever we were alone." Booth smiled at the memory, remembering back to a time when things were understandably frightening and stressful, but yet remarkably simple. A time were his priorities were clearly cut and he and Bones... well, he and Bones were not as complicated as they were now.

The sound of his watch beeping, signaling 1 o'clock, drew Booth out of his memories and back to the present. "We should go and pick her up, exams start in 30 minutes." Booth stood up as he pulled his wallet out of his pocket, throwing down the $15 that would cover their food. Brennan glared disapprovingly at the money before throwing down a $5 of her own, providing the waitress with a sizable tip for the order. Booth just chuckled at Brennan's attempt at a power play before sliding on his sunglasses and heading for the door, knowing she'd fall right in step with him.

"Why exactly would we want to pick her up before exams start? Exams are an important part of the educational process. They check a student's understanding of the material. It would be remiss of us as her parents to keep her from such important scholastic events."

"We're not keeping her from them; the school is, so to speak." The look of angry confusion on Brennan's face was enough for Booth to cut to the chase on the issue. He knew the simple fact that she was missing something about their daughter's life was upsetting to her, but the fact it was about her education, the realm of parenthood Dr. Temperance Brennan was supposed to be better at than Booth was doubly so. "She tested out of the science curriculum they had last semester and has been doing an independent study type of deal with one of the teachers. They don't have an exam to give her; therefore we can take her home early." They'd reached the SUV but failed to enter as Brennan stood, looking at Booth as if he had just told her that he'd killed her favorite pet, one part angry and two parts hurt. "Bones, I sent you a copy of the paper work last year, albeit after the majority of it since they took so long figuring out what to do... we even talked about it... you said you were fine with it. " Brennan looked down at the pavement before looking back at Booth, her eyes squinting against the sunlight and the tears.

"There was a rainstorm at the dig around that time... some of the mail was damaged beyond recognition... I must not have gotten that letter."

"See there, Bones, you couldn't have known. It wasn't your fault."

"But I should have known Booth! I should have been there when you talked to the school about it! I should have been there to see how happy she was when she got a good grade or to help her when she got frustrated with her Spanish words! I miss everything because I can't stop being selfish... I'm so concerned with succeeding professionally that I've failed at being a parent!"

"Hey!" Booth's hand gently lifted up Brennan's chin so he could look her in the eyes, the tears he saw in them, a vast difference from the norm. "Don't ever talk like that... you're a great mother."

"But-"

"Tell me she isn't the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing before you go to bed. Tell me you don't worry about her every moment you can't see her. Tell me the best moments of your day aren't when you get to hear her voice." He paused as if waiting for a reply, even though he knew he wouldn't get one. "You can't, can you?"

"That just means-"

"That just means that you love your child Bones, and that's all that matters at the end of the day." Booth reached into his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief, giving it to Brennan to wipe her eyes. "Now get yourself cleaned up. Sunshine won't want her surprise to be crying."

"I still don't understand why you felt the need to keep the fact I was coming home to stay a surprise." Brennan commented as she dabbed at her eyes and made her way to the passenger-side door and into the Sequoia. Booth felt a flutter in his stomach at her use of the word 'home', but passed it off as indigestion as he answered, turning the keys in the ignition while doing so.

"Because our child is too smart for her own good and it's almost impossible to surprise her. I swear, I'm losing my surprise mojo!" Brennan had absolutely no idea what Booth was talking about but let him continue on unabated. "Now I take any opportunity I can get to see that look of pure unadulterated glee on her face when I catch her off-guard... and trust me, seeing you..." Booth looked over at Brennan, that conspiratorial smile back on his face, "That's gonna be a look to remember."  
_

Walking into the head office of Annunciation Catholic School always filled Booth with a remarkable sense of nostalgia for his days at school, and a need to be on the lookout for a Nun with a ruler. However those feelings usually passed when he saw the school's receptionist, 73 year old Mrs. Schneider who wore bright purple glasses and somehow managed to make her entire work area smell like caramel. However, it wasn't Mrs. Schneider sitting at the desk when he entered, rather a 12 year-old-girl with a smile that could often displace even his most foul of moods.

"Welcome to Annunciation Catholic School. How can I help you?" She managed to get out with only the slightest hint of the giggles, swirling back and forth in the chair as she did so.

"Well I'm here to pick-up my daughter. The Principal called and said she's been nothing but trouble all day and he quite simply couldn't take her anymore."

"I'll have you know I've been nothing but delightful all day." Her grinning face turned serious, however, as she pointed a finger at Booth. "But you, sir, have been naughty". The confusion on Booth's face was enough to break her facade and to begin giggling again, pointing her finger now not just towards Booth in general, but rather a specific spot on his shirt where a bit of his milkshake had dribbled.

"Now, Miss Booth, we know better than to point and laugh, especially at our parents." The voice of Mrs. Schneider rang out from behind the twosome as she made her way back to her station from her trip to the bathroom. The girl in question immediately got up from the chair that she'd been sitting in and went over to the side, picking up her backpack before standing beside her father, smiling serenely as she did so.

"I was just pointing out the stain the milkshake he had for lunch left on his shirt and was about to tell him how a milkshake was not a healthy choice for lunch, but his face was so funny I had to laugh."

"A milkshake is perfectly fine to have with lunch. It's an excellent source of calcium." Booth winked at Mrs. Schneider as he signed his daughter out for the day, both of them knowing his words were bound to provoke one of her mini-lectures, a habit picked-up, no doubt, from Brennan.

"I'll have you know that a milkshake is no better at providing calcium then a regular glass of milk, but it is, in fact, better at providing a huge amount of calories and sugar," A mischievous grin crossed her face as she added, "plus they tend to make you gassy."

"And that's all we have time for today!" Booth announced quickly as he grabbed her by the shoulders and started leading her to the door. "Say good-bye to Mrs. Schneider, Sunshine."

"Bye Mrs. Schneider! Have a good weekend!" She got out before she was pushed out the door, the old woman shaking her head at the duo and smiling before answering the ringing phone.  
_

As soon as they hit the front steps, Booth angled himself in front of her, wanting to see her face the moment she saw Brennan standing beside the car. However, his plan wasn't working quite well as his daughter seemed to be quite intent on finding something in the bottom of her backpack, going so far as to drop it on the ground so she could reach down deep.

"Dad, I gotta show you the essay I got back from Mr. Thio. He said it was one of the best ones he's seen all year!"

"That's good Sunshine, but why don't you find it in the car, I'm a little hot standing here." Booth looked over at Brennan, who was uncharacteristically anxious, bouncing a little on her feet as she stood next to the hood. Closing up her book bag, the girl huffed at her father.

"It isn't my fault you're wearing a black suit in May, I told you grays are better..." The words died in her throat as she caught sight of the car and the person next to it. Brennan's anxieties quickly melted off her face as she got a good look at her little girl and that smile Booth treasured just as much as his daughter's settled on her face.

"MOM!" The joyous yell the girl let out was surely loud enough for the entire school and probably the entire block to hear, but no one in the little family cared much. Before he could stop her, not like he would even try, their daughter shot across the school's lawn and into her Mom's arms, eliciting a contented sigh from Brennan and happy tears from her child. Picking up the discarded bag, Booth looked at the two most important women in his life and thought happily _Yeah... I still got it._

_There's nothing like a mama-hug.  
__**Terri Guillemets**_


End file.
